4th of July

We had such a busy 4th of July week.  My mom's siblings come to town this week every year, and this year Marc's brother's family came in town for a visit as well.  We did a lot of house hopping and some entertaining here at our new home.  While it was a crazy week (and this week has been catch up on everything around the house that you didn't get done last week) I'm so glad we had time with our family.

My family came over for a cookout on the 4th and after they left we remembered the sparklers we bought.  The last few years we have bought a few "fireworks", but being the new kids on the block we didn't want to ruffle feathers in the new neighborhood.  So we just stuck to sparklers. Then I made a impromptu suggestion to take the girls to see the local fireworks.  They got in their pajamas and we were off to find a quiet, sneaky spot to watch the fireworks.  Except it wasn't that quiet and sneaky because hundreds of other people thought the same thing. Oh well, we found a good spot and the kids enjoyed the display.

Sleeping Beauties

This was Brooke's first night in a big girl bed.  We didn't have time to set the bed up, so we just put her to sleep on the trundle. She went right to sleep and slept all night.  Six weeks later and she has stayed in bed every night.  The plus side is we haven't had to deal with getting her to sleep because she keeps climbing out of bed.  The down side is that she won't get out when she wakes up in the morning, so she just screams for me.  Then it's a race to get in there before she wakes her sisters up. I'll take it, though.

And this is the first time in over three years that Kayla and Macy have had a room to themselves.  They seem to enjoy it, and I REALLY enjoy how easy it is to get them to go to sleep at night.  They do have spend the night Fridays and take turns sleeping in each other's rooms each week.  They look forward to that each week. 

Macy has adapted quite well to having a large bed.

House Pictures

I have had several people ask for me to post some pictures of the house.  It is still very much a work in progress (some boxes to still be unpacked, things to be hung on the wall, rugs to be bought, etc.) I thought I would go ahead and give a quick little tour. 

Brooke's Room

Kayla's Room

Macy's Room

The Kids' Nook as we call it.  It was actually a wasted entry way into Kayla's room.  It is much more useful as a storage area for toys and books. And yes, we do try to keep it this organized as much as we can.

Living Room (and if the only thing on the floor is a puzzle I am a happy mama)

Dining Room

Butler's Pantry

Kitchen

Laundry Room (makes laundry easier with the long counter top to fold on)

School Room (Still a work in progress. I was going to wait until later in the summer to get this room in order, but I came to the point where I HAD to get all of the cardboard boxes out of the house.)

 

Our bedroom has been the last room to tackle.  All of the things that haven't found a home yet are sitting around in our room and closet, so I didn't want to post pictures of that yet.  

There are lots of projects left to tackle (garages, landscaping, curtains, hanging pictures, remaining boxes, closet system in our closet, and many others), but we are pretty settled and loving the new house.  New routines are falling in to place and memories are being made.

Finishing the House and Moving

Since we have been in the house almost 3 weeks I guess I should post about moving.  May was crunch time.  We really didn't want to have to pay another month of rent on top of the construction loan payment, and we were ready to move! We had also told our landlord that we would be out at the end of May.  I'm proud to say that thanks to my hubby he handed over the keys at 9:00PM on the 31st of May. 

In the beginning of May we saw the cabinets installed. In the last 2 weeks of May the flooring was put down, all of the painting was done, granite counter tops installed, landscaping done (minimal at this point - we have plenty of time to plant things now that we are moved in), lighting and fans hung, exterior stone set, a home packed up, and everything moved. Phew! I need a vacation!

One of the sub-contractors left his bobcat at the house over the weekend and gave Marc the keys.  He was like a kid in a candy store - until he almost seriously injured himself and needing rescuing. That's a story for another day.

And I can't forget the driveway was poured.

Kayla was still in school for the first half of May, so one day I decided to get some painting done.  We brought over the portable DVD players.  The girls thought that was the BEST thing to hang out and watch a movie.

We passed our final inspection on a Tuesday afternoon, rented a U-Haul and moved boxes with the help of Marc's brother Tuesday evening, picked up our new couches in the U-Haul Tuesday night, unloaded them Wednesday morning and moved more stuff that afternoon.  Moving van came Thursday morning for the big stuff.  Marc went back that afternoon and evening to pack up what hadn't made it into boxes yet (and isn't that always more than you think it is) and he cleaned up the town-home before turning in the keys.  

So you are probably wondering why Marc went back and did all of the last minute packing and cleaning by himself.  Well I forgot to mention that Wednesday night Kayla woke up throwing up. A lot.  And she shared with me.  We teach the importance of sharing in our house.  Guess we need to be more specific on what we really want them to share and not share. :)  Anyway, we both spent the entire morning laying around while the movers did their thing, and then we slept while my mom came over to help us and get the beds ready to sleep in.  I guess that's a way to get out of moving, but I hate that I was no  help to Marc. We both woke up Friday morning feeling fine. 

Thursday will mark 3 weeks we have been in our house, and we are mostly unpacked. We absolutely love our new home.  So many decisions went into this house and the only one I would change is the color of our pantry shelves.  The lighting in the pantry makes them look more blue than gray, but if that's the only thing I don't particularly care for I'd say we did good.

Pictures of the house to come hopefully later this week.

Catch Up Time

finishing building a house + moving + unpacking + raising 3 precious girls = no time to blog

being way behind on a blog + husband on a business trip = evening time to catch up

I've picked out my pictures, now I just need to write up the blogs.  So far I have about 9 blogs to write. Yikes!

Oh, and I will be post dating the blogs, so keep going back to catch up.  The oldest will be Kayla's recital.

Summer Fun

Sprinkler Time

Macy is really the only one who enjoys the sprinkler.  Marc tried to get the other two in the water, but it didn't really work as planned.

Patiently waiting for the little bucket to fill up so she could dump it in the big red bucket.

Oh this girl and puzzles - actually this puzzle in particular. She loves puzzles in general, but this horse puzzle is her favorite.  She does it over and over (probably 15 times a day - and I think I hear her doing it again right now).  She is getting good and can do most 24 piece puzzles by herself.  This horse puzzle she can do all by herself.

Pool time. LOVE the float that we found for Brooke this year.  With Kayla swimming, both Kayla and Macy being able to comfortable touch the bottom of the pool, and Brooke in this float I can take the girls to the pool by myself and not stress. I just need to get more pictures!

 Silly girls.

 

Macy's Birthday Party

Since May was a super crazy month (finishing school, dance recitals, crunch time building the house, moving, etc.) we told Macy she could have her party somewhere other than our house.  After offering up a few ideas she chose to paint pottery. It was probably the most low-key party we have ever had.  No cleaning, no cooking, just pick up some cupcakes, paint, open presents, eat cupcakes, pay, and leave. And of course Miss Macy had a great time.

Ella was so sweet loving on Brooke.

A little embarrassed that everyone was singing to her. 

For her birthday dinner she chose Moe's.  Just another reason she is her father's daughter. :)  We took her presents with us and she opened them at the restaurant.

Brooke will only eat the icing off of a cake (or off of her sister's fingers).

We had wrapped up her helmet to go with her new bike, and at the last minute decided to stick the bike in the back of Marc's car and bring it with us.  She was so excited to get her first bike.  The other one she had was passed down from Kayla and she has definitely out grown it.

It even has a basket for her to put a baby doll in!